Posted
by
kdawson
on Tuesday October 21, 2008 @03:08AM
from the compared-to-what dept.

Technologizer writes "Apple's new MacBook is a significantly different machine than its predecessor — a slicker laptop at a higher price point. But does it carry a large price premium over similar Windows PCs? I did a painstaking spec-by-spec comparison versus three roughly comparably-configured Windows machines, and came to the conclusion that the value it offers for price paid is not out of whack with the Windows world." The article uses the phrase "Mac tax," which one commenter points out is a recent Microsoft marketing canard.

The challenge of the thumbscoop was to create a crisply machined scoop that was still comfortable to use. The designers at Apple worked on hundreds of versions of the thumbscoop -- even examining them under an electron microscope -- to get it right.

It's all relative. For the average slashdotter to be hipper than all his friends he can do any of the following:

1. Walk up to a girl and say "hi".2. Move out of his parents basement.3. Shower.4. Stop reading/.5. Stop quoting The Simpsons/Star Wars/Monty Python/etc.6. Beat the Cheetos and Mountain Dew addiction.7. You know what - screw this list. I'm way too hip for this.

I know you jest, but Every man that I see that touches one of the newest Macbook's has a wet stain on his pants and says in a low tone..."I must have this"

Honestly, If Dell made a laptop that was near the macbook pro caliber in build they would sell just as well and cost as much.

I tolerate dell lattitude laptops simply because the parts are dirt cheap. I have had "high end" sony Viao laptops and they are utter crap in build quality and design. Alienware laptops feel cheap and I dont want to carry a cartoon character around, they look incredibly dorky in the boardroom, I might as well have a giant "the TICK" sticker on my laptop and wear a TICK t-shirt.

Well the hipper part is kind of fun... When you walk in with a laptop that makes the suits stare, and then you use keynote to show them a presentation that makes their best power point look like a childs crayon drawing... well yeah, it's nice to look hipper than the CEO that makes 40X your salary. You end up closing the deal far faster that way.

it's why all our salespeople have them. That and the sales idiots cant infect a OSX laptop in 20 seconds with all their inane clicking and downloading. They still bitch they cant have windows laptops.

Every man that I see that touches one of the newest Macbook's has a wet stain on his pants and says in a low tone..."I must have this"

You have to get out more. The notion that "every man" is a shallow, childish consumer-bot who has sexual feelings for a chunk of metal and plastic (don't forget the glass!) is really sad.

The last time I had "a wet stain on my pants and said in a low tone..."I must have this"" is the first time my wife kissed me.

Lumpy, I can understand the appreciation of good design, but for me the most important part of great design is the ability to offer the product at a reasonable price.

Considering that a lot of people are having some serious financial problems at the moment, not only here in the 'States but worldwide, I'd think that it might be time for a little re-evaluation of the importance of the objects we desire.

When you walk in with a laptop that makes the suits stare...

Lumpy, you have to try to find other ways to feel good about yourself in front of the "suits". You will find in life that the pleasure achieved from making others "stare" is fleeting and ultimately hollow. Your self-worth should not derive from something you can buy because at some point (probably soon) you will have maxed out your Visa and it's going to be harder to get those bumps in credit that the banks have been so happy to dole out to us over the years to make up for the fact that our real income has been stagnant. You simply have to find something inside yourself that creates a sense of pride and self-worth. I'm sure if you really really look (really) you'll see that there are good enough, smart enough and darnit, people like you. Probably.

From my experiences, Dell Latitudes have excellent quality parts in them, minus the hard drives... That would be why they are a premium price over an equivalently spec'ed XPS, or Inspiron, if you could even spec them the same.
Plus, Dell's Tech Support has been phenomenal for us where I work, every Latitude we've had an issue with, which hasn't been many out of the 200+ we have deployed; have been resolved within 20 minutes, and the parts are here to repair the machine by the next day.
Don't knock the Latitudes, they are an amazing machine, thats why I recommend them to anyone who wants a laptop they can rely on.
As for infecting machines.... Have you considered a lock-down policy, with not giving every user admin rights?

So there you have it. If Apple is funding the development of technology to send their designers into the future, where they must then spend years infiltrating futuristic IEEE meetings before returning to the present to design laptops, then of course their machines will be a little more expensive.

But just think of the money you'll save when you can browse the Omninet using remote mind-control in 3245AD while those Dell suckers are stuck with forking out for Dell's by-then outdated brain-implant technology.

1) Snow Leopard will support OpenCL. You might say well so what, eventually my Dell will to, after all that's what Open means. True, but look at the architecture in the macs. They elimiated the Northbridge and the Bus chips. The CPU now connects directly to the GPU.

If you have ever tried to program an NVIDIA GPU for computational work you know that the slow step is shuttling the data back to the CPU. So having OpenCL with an insanley fast bus means that standard is going to actually be useful.

2) the Open HD video connector.on the new macs, running H264 high def has dropped processor utilization from 100% to 20%, presumbaly because of the NVIDIA chip. So now streaming HD is going to be a reality and will actually exist for the mac world. And TVs that support the Open HD are becoming available.

Is that even possible? That's like giving directions and using landmarks that haven't been built yet. "Do a gravity-assisted left turn as you approach over Moon Base Alpha...Stay on course until you see the Asteroid Collection Colony...go through the Ceres tunnel...and then it's basically a straight shot to Jupiter Red Spot Resort and Spa."

are arbitrary and often proprietary notions regarding the engineering of a product. more often they are just poor excuses for design, built to lock consumers into your product at the expense of everyones time, energy, and sanity.

they can also be marketing gimmicks that infiltrated engineering via a useless first-line manager with no more product engineering insight than "it needs to be wireless."

this kind of "engineering" isnt new. microsoft has been engineering things to standards that dont exist for around a decade. the only difference is windows ME didnt come with some shitcock in a turtleneck banging the invincible OS drum and treating me like i was a six year old with nothing better to do with my time than swoon over magnetic power cords..

I laugh more when I walk into a computer store and look at all the plastic PC laptops. Nothing wrong with being cheap and functional, of course, but some of those laptops try too hard with silly designs because they have no eye for detail.

I purchased an Alienware laptop for my wife a few years back. Though she doesn't play games, she insisted on a laptop that could do it. (works out well for me, since now I don't have to lug my laptop around if I want to play a game).

The Alienware had a beautiful screen, and enough horsepower to play the latest games at near maximum resolution. I was happy with it. It also cost less than $2000 brand new, which I considerd a fair price for the specs of the machine. It was faster, and had a larger screen than my Dell Inspiron 8600 (Which is still alive after 4 years of beating the hellout of it.) However, it did have a video card failure. Thankfully it was swappable, which was one of the reasons I went with alienware. Less than $200 to repair and it was back up and running. My Dell hasn't yet had a failure.

The point is, for a laptop to last for over 2 years and only suffer a video-card failure, I'd consider $1700 a good price.

There's one major difference this analysis doesn't cover. If you're patient, you can get a dell for up to 40% off, and although it's not quite as drastic with Lenovo, the same is true. This macbook will ALWAYS be expensive.

Price isn't all of it. You can get an HP notebook with great specs really cheap, and I did. The DV6130us was a steal for its specs back in its time, but it didn't perform like a machine with those numbers should (they forgot to tell you the front side bus was totally gimped) and it degraded quickly in ways that weren't covered by warranty.

Now fingers crossed here, but I haven't had a problem with the mac mini I bought to be my web/svn server/jukebox/snes/arcade machine wannabe nor my macbook pro, and I

After using half Windows and half Mac for 6 months last year, I switched totally to the Mac about 6 months ago. Here's what I've concluded:

1) OSX is not very fast. I think it's bloated. I've got a ridiculous amount of processing power on this Mac Pro, but it just doesn't move that fast.

2) XP is not very fast. I know it's bloated.

So what's the difference?

OSX is still as slow on my MacBook as it was the day I bought it. I've already formatted my XP Boot Camp gaming partition once this year to get my speed back.

The big problem with Windows is that it gets slower as you go. I haven't noticed that at all with the Mac, even as I wantonly install and uninstall programs. I used to be terrified of what new programs would do to my XP machine. I just haven't had that problem with OSX. Plus, I have access to lots of cool things developed for UNIX that don't seem to slow anything down, stay out of my way, and Just Work.

Indeed you notice the performance hit under Windows after some time. In regards to OS X, what I really do like is it's responsiveness. Even if it sometimes isn't exactly the fastest thing on earth, with the latest version of it I always feel it very responsive and quick to acknoledge my actions.

I recently switched my gf to Mac, she is a designer. The reason for the switch was that every time Windows slowed down for her (an average user) she couldn't install it back on her own. She was really afraid of using Macs, but fortunately, she found it easy to learn the basic concepts, and is now using it full time. I am really glad I won't need to be installing Windows again in 6 months:D

In any case, I do realize that OS X isn't perfect. It may not be the most secure sistem either. But I believe that there's no discussion that it requires less maintenance for the average user today. Today is all that matters today. If things change, I'll see other options.

The WHOLE POINT of PCs is the fact that you don't haveto be limited to the options given to you by Apple. Youcan make relatively minor tweaks to the specs that makea large difference in price while not significantlyeffecting the end result.

I'm not convinced. While the article does tally with my experience when shopping around for a laptop, I had a student discount on the MacBook which made me go for it. And it was the last generation. I'm not sure if this still holds as PC laptops have gotten much cheaper in the last 6 months.

Also, it was in the UK where Macs are priced similarly in real terms to the States and PCs are twice as expensive ("strong currency tax" anyone?).

If my math is right, I said that the machines are at PARITY in six of the categories we've reviewed. The MacBook has an ADVANTAGE in thirteen categories, the Dell in nine, the Lenovo and Sony in eight apiece, and the white MacBook in seven.

He didn't even count the magsafe connection for the power adaptor, so my count would put it at 14. So, instead of just called them the same specs, how about you actually point out why this guy spec comparison is wrong? But no, unsubstantiated assertions are insightful as long as you're bashing Apple, Microsoft or Google here at slashdot.

And you know something? I've used/administered several Dells -- they're $400 cheaper for a reason, it's called QA/QC and Dells lack it in my experience. Average lifetime of a Dell 3-5 years maybe with better luck on the monitors. Average lifetime of my Apple machines: 5-6 years. This is counting all warrantied replacement parts as included in the lifetime.

I did RTFA. Without RTFA'ing, I would have had no way of knowing that the assertion that the Dell isn't equivalent is bullshit. The Mac has a slightly better processor, the Dell has 50% more RAM (slight benefit to each side). The Dell has more hard drive space. In all the specs that ACTUALLY MATTER (no, looks and power connector and other such bullshit don't matter... just stuff that makes the compy run better), the Dell is equivalent.

Apple don't discount because they don't have to. Seriously - check out eBay. People are selling G4 laptops for close on $1,000. With new line out now, that will drop I hope, but to answer your question - there's no reason to discount. Macs live for a long time and just keep working. I service my sister in laws Mac G4 and except for a memory upgrade, I've done nothing to it - and it runs OSX 10.4 like a champ. Say what you like, Apple have an excellent value proposition.

Yes, apple is expensive. But the question was -- are apple taxing you for buying their brand. Answer no -- you get the high end kit, and you pay market rate for it, if you don't want high end kit, don't buy a Mac.

"Who buys those high-end Windows machines? Nobody with any sense."People that make their living with their computer should.The junk that they sell as a consumer notebook these days is terrible.Audio recordings are full of static. Hard drives seem so slow that it just isn't funny and a build quality that is just a bad joke.The specs are close on a lot of consumer notebooks but they cut corners on the parts that are not on the spec like hard drive speed, power supply quality, and build quality in general.Yes

Exactly ! That's why there isn't much point in trying to squeeze Macs in an objective comparison : you buy a Mac to get pleasure from purchasing a nice item, whereas you buy the winner of an objective comparison to get pleasure from being a smart customer.

Macs are design items. Some people don't mind paying a higher price for something which appeals to them.

Price is what you pay, value is what you get. If you subjectively feel that the value of the product matches the price paid then an objective comparison is not significant.

For those of us (many of us) who need Mac/OSX for their work, opinions that the premius is worth it because of the fancy design is frankly insulting.

In a situation where Apple is the only official and legal seller of OSX compatible computers, claiming that all buyers buy it since they love the design (as if they have a choice) sounds as if all people who bought a Windows PC in the last year or so, do it because they love Vista.

Many of you? With all due respect there are not a huge number of things that really honestly require a Mac these days. I've done desktop publishing, graphics work, sound recording and design, video editing all on Windows. It works quite well with the right software these days. Granted, if you _have_ to have some particular OS X only software a Mac is the only option. But that's a clear minority these days.

So no, not that many.

But I never said that everyone buys Macs for the nice design. I said that an objective price comparison is irrelevant to someone who did. Don't jump to generalizations just because I managed to irritate you when you didn't bother to read my post thoroughly.

Really? I'd heard a while back, that WoW ran faster on a Mac running windows than it did with OS X... Is this no longer the case, or was I misinformed to begin with?

I've never done that kind of comparison as I will never install Microsoft Windows on my Mac, but I am much more impressed with it on the Mac than I was on Microsoft Windows XP. The sound sounds better, the video is better and I do not have those annoying involuntary SHIFT-TAB slow crashes and inevitable deaths that I always had with Microsoft Windows.

Actually there *are* unique features to the Mac WoW client, to quote TUAW:
"Most gaming companies tend to shy away from the Mac, but Blizzard has always been the exception. And with World of Warcraft, there are actually huge benefits to playing the game on a Mac. A while ago they added builtin iTunes controls (right into the official client), and as of the upcoming patch (now available for players to play around with on a public test), they've actually created an ingame movie recorder-- only for the WoW Mac client.
It's a pretty well done feature, too. WoW Insider's Paul Sherrard took the recorder for a test drive, and created what you see above (after a little bit of iMovie fiddling). The options are pretty impressive for an ingame vid capture as well-- you can control whether the UI or cursor is seen or not, and you even get a choice of codecs (including H.264, Pixlet, or Motion JPEG). Very nice. Whoever's working on the Mac team at Blizzard really knows what they're doing, and is definitely giving Mac users the hookup on cool exclusive features."
Re: http://www.tuaw.com/2007/07/13/world-of-warcraft-mac-client-adds-builtin-movie-capture/ [tuaw.com]

OSX is what userland Linux should be. It's secure enough. And there is a culture of user-centricity amongst the application developers. That's the special Mac aura - to me.

The keyboards are really good, too. I love that spacing between the keys - the margin of error is built-in, so that you can type faster and still avoid hitting the neighbouring key. Stuff like being able to write appx 10% faster is also the "marginal" utility of a Mac.

The marginal utility of the Mac is the amount of thought that goes into the entire system. Everything from MagSafe and freefall harddrive locking to built-in webcams (which you'll notice PCs quickly copied) to POSIXy goodness and Open Group certification. Different volume settings for different audio pipelines. Self-contained applications, system-wide and per-user settings, etc.

Add to that its greatness as a development environment and I'm pretty much sold.

If only OS X (specifically HFS+) would support filesystem holes. Grrrr...

1. True multi-touch trackpad (not just scrolling). You can go on ebay and try for a fingerworks trackpad when they are available at ebay but they go for big money and are for desktops (but nice software, too bad company was bought by apple).

2. Economizing ports. I like a lack of ports, it always irks me when I see something as antiquated as a serial port on my notebook. Don't ask me why, but it's rather like seeing a floppy drive on a notebook.

3. Stylish elegance. THe unibody construction is really nice. It may be silly, but even the upper end notebooks from competitors seem like hunks of ugly black plastic, and if not, they still get a lot of little things wrong. The little things like their crappy bezels/logos on the back or just the obvious overpacking of ports to fill out a bureacratic checklist. It's like they try to a certain extent, and then promptly give up once they have to invest in something that costs more money than usual.

Yes, Apple owns me completely, I guess I'm their whore in this direction. But since a notebook is a tool I work with all day (has replace my desktop as well), I might as well get something I like, even if it costs a bit more.

I honestly don't get the debate. Either buy it or don't. But this issue/whining comes so frequently, I have to wonder if its from people who want to get one but can't afford it, can't talk their boss/SO into it, or just too cheap. I never hear people obsess over Alienware's prices as much. Even the new Macbook, lacking firewire, may be called the new 13 inch Mac Book Pro for all intents and purposes and considering some of the upgrade, the rise in price was probably warranted (more RAM in both offerings by default is called for though).

Instead, it seems like they are constantly trying to make others feel bad for their purchase. Lighten up, it's just a notebook. I would got with an MSI Wind|EEEpc + cheap desktop if I couldn't afford the Mac right now. Not a big deal.

I honestly don't get the debate. Either buy it or don't. But this issue/whining comes so frequently, I have to wonder if its from people who want to get one but can't afford it, can't talk their boss/SO into it, or just too cheap.

From my experience -- It is mostly from Mac owners trying to justify the money spent.

From my experience, it is mostly from PC users complaining about a lot of features they would never need. (Though for some reason when you have them they grow on you...) It's two groups of users pidgin-holing the opposite sides.

I bought 2 of my 3 macs second-hand, all were a bargain, and still I'd gladly pay the 'mac tax' on a new macbook if I needed a new laptop. However, at the moment I can still manage with the $600 iBook G4 I bought like 4 years ago or something. This isn't Windows, you don't _need_ to upgrade your hardware every 2 years (which already more than offsets the 'mac tax').

Anyway this should disprove your argument, at least in my case. It's not so much 'us mac users' feel we need to 'justify our money spent', but i

Have you ever even used a Mac for a substantial amount of time? I bet you haven't. As it is, as I said earlier in the thread, look at the summary from the article:

If my math is right, I said that the machines are at PARITY in six of the categories we've reviewed. The MacBook has an ADVANTAGE in thirteen categories, the Dell in nine, the Lenovo and Sony in eight apiece, and the white MacBook in seven.

As others have pointed out, there are things the author didn't consider such as the magsafe power connect

Seriously, no FireWire? I know they tried to screw the IEEE 1394 working group with the bait-and-switch license pricing tactic, and the beating they took in the industry was well deserved. But 1394 is superior from an operational standpoint, even if the controllers are a bit of unwieldy packaging-wise and expensive to boot. To have removed it completely from the low-end laptop doesn't bode well for it's future in the rest of the consumer hardware line, although lots of people still have MiniDV cams that use it. USB2/3 will in no way be able to fill that gap, even with the coming surge in hard-disk video cameras.

You fail, Apple. No FW400 (at a freakin' minimum, come on), no sale. I'll get the Dell or the Lenovo and Hackintosh the bejeezus out of it.

I think Apple's thought process is that if they get rid of the firewire from the low end laptops, people who need it are going to upgrade to Macbook Pros. Which probably isn't that far off. If you require firewire for your work and you're accustomed to FCP, then chances are you're not going to get a Win laptop and Hackintosh it, you're just gonna put in the money to get the one with firewire.

the coming surge of hard disk recorders is a raging joke. Most use a freaking strange format to record in. JVC uses the bizzare mpeg2/mpeg4 hybrid called TOD... WTF is that? sony is using a strange mpeg4 format as well.

All of these mean you get the files on your pc and then spend 12 hours converting them to a format that can be edited. yeah I saved a lot of time.... NOT.

plus the sustained transfer rate of usb2 cant even touch that of firewire 400 so it still wins.

The article uses the phrase "Mac tax," which one commenter points out is a recent Microsoft marketing canard.

Did that commenter also point out that "Mac tax" is (the first time) both written in quotation marks to imply that it's not their phrase and link to an article that was called "Are Macs More Expensive? Definitely - Just Ask Microsoft!"? The whole point of the article is that the phrase has been coined and they're investigating whether Macs are more expensive for the specs than comparable PCs.

Not that I'm saying Macs are cheap - I'd rather custom build/upgrade and slap Linux on it - but it's not as if it's an unbalanced comparison article.

I think a more interesting question is, why aren't they as expensive anymore? The Mac Tax was real when they had a small market share and low cash flows. Now the iPod sales have flushed them with cash and they can offer the Mac at a discount. Not a huge "loss leader Xbox below cost discount" but more of a "thank god we don't have to gouge the fuck out of our loyal fans price." Once we throw the iPhone money hose into the mix and we might even see price parity, oh wait, we do.

The bundled Microsoft Windows license, which is still way too difficult to shake loose, is a significant "Microsoft tax." In fact, it's the single most expensive component in most PCs. As the price of other PC components continues to fall, the Microsoft tax is becoming more onerous as a greater share of the cost structure, causing consumers and vendors to rebel increasingly. The tax is particularly acute with netbooks, so Linux is gaining a significant foothold in that market segment.

Fingerprint Scanner
The Dell and Sony have one. ADVANTAGE: DELL AND SONY

It makes me laugh every time: Hmmmm a finger print reader......where would I be able to find fingerprints of someone who has used this laptop that I have just stolen? Sure hope they don't always use gloves when they type.....

I mean, where can you think of a more cool-but-useless feature? And it is sooo cool.......

The problem is, that for the target market it is horribly overpriced. This guy had to go out of his way to ignore all the similarly TARGETED machines that you can find in your Sunday circular for $500 to $800. Some of them even have discreet graphics at that price.

Better yet, everyone knows Dell is always on sale. You can find deals on any laptop maker other than Apple.

The real Mac tax is found when comparing targeted audience. In other words, the people who would love to have a laptop for light work. This the audience Apple misses completely by pricing themselves out of consideration.

I could probably find half a dozen laptops that would serve just as well, if not with more features, but they wouldn't look cool.

(fwiw I own an iMac, 2nd gen iPod, and 2nd gen Touch, and am awaiting the next gen iMac to come out)

In Europe (UK at least) Apple computers are taxed more, I've heard the stories of people flying to america to buy their Macs there, even with the plane tickets it still works out less than buying at a local shop! WTF?

Im a big Mac guy, but even I felt bad for my friend who wanted to switch, he wanted to rebuy his computer again (long story), his $1500 NZD PC (some media centre thing with tv tuner card etc) was roughly equal in specs to the $3000 NZD iMac he ended up getting, once the warranty on the Mac was brought up to 3 years as well as rebuying Office for Mac. It was painful, and he misses the TV Tuner, ones I've seen that plug in cost HUNDREDS! Ouch.

Maybe in America, but I think in many parts of the world, Macs are very sadly more expensive than PCs. I compare my Macs to computers a friend has built for himself, and theres a big difference in price. I would still take the Mac for design and OSX, but they are not cheap here in New Zealand:)

There are many, many examples of how the 'reviewer' has simply picked the wrong comparisons. Sony and Lenovo are notoriously expensive. Generic Dells are notoriously crappy. And of course, where the Apple is deficient (e.g. hard disk space or RAM) the reviewer doesn't add the necessary upgrades at Apple's prices to make the price comparison fair, it simply ignores them.

I can't link to it because of Dell's site, but for about $100 more Dell currently has an XPS 1330 which whips the Macbook in virtually every respect: much better graphics, much more RAM and HDD, significantly faster CPU, bigger battery, better connectivity, and so on. Mysteriously, the reviewer has instead selected a relatively poor quality Dell as a comparison point.

Some other selections from TFA:

Those Windows cheapies are simply a different class of computer

How? This is not explained. Does "different class" mean "much cheaper?

I looked for ones with 13-inch screens and Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs, and I priced them in build-to-order configurations sold directly by the manufacturers so I could customize them to match the MacBook when possible.

I understand that the objective is to compare "like-for-like" and see whether Apple is adding a premium, but if an AMD chip (or a different Intel chip) offers comparable or better performance but is not available on a Mac, then how is that not part of the 'cost' of buying Apple? Limiting it to Core 2 Duo seems unneccessary. And why is it legitimate to reconfigure the competition, but not the Mac? Could it be that Apple savagely gouge you for any upgrades?

I configured the MacBook, white Macbook, and Sony with 160GB drives The Dell and Lenovo come with 25GGB ones. Theyâ(TM)re all 5400rpm models. ADVANTAGE: DELL AND LENOVO

Why not pay whatever Apple charges for the same capacity? One of the biggest Apple gouges is when you add RAM or storage to their preconfigured systems. Ignoring this is not justified.

Macs sometimes suffer in comparison to Windows PCs when it comes to the quantity of USB ports, but all these machines seems to provide just two of âem. PARITY

And yet, there would be hundreds of x86 laptops on the market that provide 4 or more.

Everybody can output to a VGA display, but the MacBook has the new DisplayPort connector, and you need to buy a $29 adapter to do VGAâ"but on the other hand, you can also buy a $99 dual-link adapter that can drive a 30-inch display. The white MacBook has mini-DVI, and also needs an extra cost adapter to do VGA. The Dell, Lenovo, and Sony have standard VGA connectors. Iâ(TM)ve going to give the ADVANTAGE to the MacBook for its power but also to the Dell, Lenovo, and Sony for their convenience.

Or you could pick a different Dell, like an XPS series model, and get HDMI, s-video and DVI as standard. In addition, the review does not appear to add in the cost of Apples various dongles and attachments.

Theyâ(TM)ve all got audio in, audio out, and a microphone; the MacBooks are the only ones with optical in and out, or at least the only ones that tout it. ADVANTAGE: BOTH MACBOOKS

HDMI equates to "optical out" and is arguably more useful for modern hi-fi equipment. I am relatively ignorant about audio in options.

Iâ(TM)m going to give the MacBook the ADVANTAGE here, for the aluminum case and near-seamless design

Again, this is simply a result of picking the wrong competition - again check out (for instance) Dell XPS laptops, which are extremely well built and solid.

To reply to my own post, knocking the 13" Macbook up to the same specs as the Lenovo in terms of RAM, HDD, and video out increases the price to $1,457.00, or $150-200 more than the Lenovo depending on whether we go by the "sale price" or the list price.

So in summary: yes, there is a "Mac tax" (which incidentally is a phrase which was in use long before MS adopted it).

Long story short, the least expensive Windows laptop he found comparable to the $1400 MacBook was an $820 Dell, making the Mac Tax a whole 70% on top of the price-conscious buyer's choice in the Windows world.

However, he did succeed in finding two similarly overpriced models to the Mac from Sony and Lenovo, demonstrating that bad choices are also available in the PC world, if you look hard enough.

This sounds like the start of a lame joke but: A Dell, a Lenovo (aka IBM Thinkpad) and a Mac fall off a table...

Either way. I have had Dells and Mac's (and IBM Thinkpads). The only ones still floating around at my house is the Mac and the IBM. The Dell machines just break as soon as they're put up to a little bit of abuse and I won't put up any longer with their support department. Like this time that I got a bundle from work which included a laptop, a docking station, a screen and keyboard/mouse. Something was DOA so I contacted support which is apparently in India, they told me to send it back... oh, I have to pay for packaging and shipping by FedEx or UPS. They then ship it back a week later saying that parts are missing and they can't do anything with it. Call them again and after about an hour or so on the phone, apparently I need to ship EVERYTHING back and STILL pay for shipping because it was bought as a bundle. That's over $100 just to get something replaced? Then it takes them over 3 weeks to get me my stuff back.

Ever called Apple support? You can call without any support contract and get help for just about anything Mac related (or walk in any Apple store) in about 5-15 minutes. If it's really a big problem and you're friendly, they might even connect you to an engineer that worked on the product. If something breaks like a hard drive they will OVERNIGHT you a package with the new hard drive and schedule to pick up the dead one without any cost to you, you just take off the first mailing stickers and magically a well-formed return sticker appears. The same goes for laptops, they will overnight or same-day you a special package that fits the laptop and if you can convince the FedEx guy to wait a second while you pack it back up, a repaired or new laptop will arrive within 3-5 business days.

In TFA it is stated on page 3 that the MacBook costs 1299$ while the Lenovo is 1264.84$, the Sony is $1194.99 and the Dell is $819. Yet, in order to make the MacBook appear to be not so expensive in comparison, it states that they are all of comparable value and therefore, as you should ignore price differences in the scale of 100$, they all cost the same. I mean, WTF?

But that isn't all. There are a few more laptop manufacturers that, oddly enough, happen to be the world's leading laptop manufacturers (Acer, HP, Asus, etc) and also, oddly enough, offer similar laptops in the same price range of the Dell laptop. In fact, Sony and Lenovo are known as the inexplicably expensive laptop brands.

So, having said that, how exactly can anyone claim that the Apple laptops aren't expensive when you realize that their laptops are more expensive than the already expensive windows laptops? You can't.

P.S.: The current Apple laptops are also PCs. It doesn't make sense to claim that a Windows laptop is a PC while the Apple laptop is something else.

One reason I dislike current laptops are their (generally) crappy LCD resolutions. Over the past 7-8 years I've only used laptops with 14.1in SXGA+ LCDs, including the T60p I'm typing this from. I actually prefer the 14.1in SXGA+ LCDs, but I know it's a losing battle. A very limited number of T61p were released with them, and I'm pretty sure they'll be the last in history.

I'm not unreasonable, and I understand that movies look better if they fill the widescreen. Although with all the variations in widescreen ratios, I'm yet to see a movie without any black borders. You can also display two documents side by side, even though 90% of people I've seen only show a single maximized instance of MS Word with a single document open. Widescreens do take less room in cramped spaces, allow for more keyboard space and even numpads, etc. However I use my laptop for typing, and screen height is far more important than width. I'm a minority though, so I'll adapt.

Now assuming I'd be looking for a replacement laptop tomorrow (hopefully my T60p will last a while), moving to Apple would mean going "down" to a 15.4in WSXGA (loss of 150pixel height) on the Macbook Pros or 13.3in WXGA (loss of 250pixel height and 200pixel width) on the Macbooks. THERE ARE NO OTHER OPTIONS.

On the other hand I just checked out Lenovo's site. Their T500 laptop is offered with a 15.4in WSXGA or WSGA+ resolution. The WSXGA+ is only a $75 upgrade, and it offers the same height and much more width than my SXGA+. The rest of the specs are very close to the Macbook Pro, but at first glance it's about $200 cheaper.

Beyond their arguably sleek design, the absolutely only reason any rational person would even consider a Macbook or Macbook Pro is OS X. I used it briefly, and I really liked it. Unfortunately given my laptop use, the OS alone is not incentive enough to put up with the limited and (slightly) more expensive hardware.

The thing which I find annoying with all these analysis is that they never, ever compare battery life, which to me is the singulary most important spec of a highly portable laptop (10-13 inches or so, above that is portable (14-17), below that is netbooks (7-9)).
The cheapest MacBook/iBook has, from at least 2005 (as long as I've checked out the market) been in the top cathegory for battery life in it's priceclass, and, they don't even lie that much with how long time they can actually be used responsibly.
Also, they are pretty much noiceless and doesn' generate extreme hot spots like many laptops do, making them more comfortable to use in your lap.

The Thinkpad has pretty much always had the best keyboard in a laptop, ever since Toshiba quit putting full-sized keys in their Satellites. Apple's keyboards have never been great, but they peaked with the Extended II keyboard just before Jobs came back and since the iMac and blue-and-white G3 Apple's keyboards have been downright horrible, to the point where I have to use an external keyboard with my Macbook Pro to avoid physical pain.

And Apple's passive-aggressive refusal to just put two goddam buttons on their mice and trackpads is worth about a million points against them.

Even if I could buy a PC at $300-$400 less than a MacBook, even with all the features (or a little more), I won't get what I really want:
A computer with OSX, UNIX, and able to run anything on the planet. You can call that a tax if you like.

Has anyone checked the price of Apple machines seen over several years? Try to sell a cheap PC notebook after a few years and do the same with a MacBook. You will see that there may be a "Mac tax" but it also applies to used machines.

And I've seen many people being cheap with their notebooks and really regretting it very soon. Paying a bit more hurts only once but using a crappy notebook hurts every day.

That's a double-edged sword too. We sell new and used macs, but we actually don't get in many used macs. People run them for 5, 7, even 10 years before they upgrade. And by then they get handed off to the kids. We see few used desktops to sell, and VERY few used laptops. I have yet to see us set out a used laptop that lasts more than a week before someone buys it.

What that means for the person that buys it is, you are pretty much guaranteed to get a good price when it comes time to sell it. My new ma

I use this machine as my mobile gaming machine (it works great) and work stuff (software development, office work), home stuff (movie editing etc). The only disadvantage with it, is that it each core has 1.66GHz, while on the Mac Mini has 1.83GHz. That said, I couldn't use the Mac Mini for decent gaming, or for the majority of the stuff I use this laptop for without significant performance costs, lack of hardware options etc.

That's just the Mini, the cheapest laptop from Apple is the MacBook is £719.00 (GBP), which has Intel GMA graphics, no dedicated graphic card RAM, only 1GB RAM.

Sorry, I'm not convinced Apple systems are on par with PCs for their cost.

As usual the article and the commentaries ask and answer completely the wrong question.

The interesting question is NOT whether, if you take a Mac spec as your starting point, you can duplicate it for less elsewhere from another vendor. The answer is usually, no, not very much, and sometimes it costs more. Which tells us just about nothing about suitability of product or value for money.

The interesting question is whether, if you are looking for a computer, you can find a better value choice better suited to your needs from the Mac range or from other vendors ranges.

You almost always can. The reason is, the paucity of price points and specification points in the Mac range. This results in Macs being an overpriced or underfeatured choice for most people most of the time.

This leads to a simple conclusion. For most people, most of the time, the Mac product is going to be overpriced. For most people, the other vendor product is going to offer better value. Which is quite compatible with the proposition that for any given point in the Mac range, its hard or impossible to duplicate it for much less. This was however never the issue.

The Mac range is not the starting point for comparisons, any more than the Louis Vuitton range is. How one wishes people would stop pretending that it is.

Now I am convinced that there is no Mac tax. I happen to know that I'm immune to the idea that I'm a fanboi suffering from post-purchase justification. I just know that once you own one, if you had the Mac tax issue, you lose it. Quickly. Completely. Forever.

Then your next laptop will be a Mac. And you'll recommend them. And you'll probably try to explain something in a post that might not be easily explained.

So yes Apple computers are obviously more expensive than their counterparts and represent terrible value as time advances. Maybe the gulf is not as wide as it once was but its still there.

Terrible value, true. Macbook aftermarket (=used) prices are 70-80% of current shop prices, at least around here. That is value indeed - upgrading to a new model takes surprisingly little additional € when you sell the old one off.

Try this: On Windows, in a non-admin account, try changing your IP from a static to DHCP address. On a Mac, one click: Apple menu>Locations>DHCPIt still boggles my mind that on simple things like this, Windows still can't get it right or easy.